


Invasive Species

by glinda4thegood



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alien Abduction, Aliens, Gen, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-29
Updated: 2011-08-29
Packaged: 2017-10-23 05:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glinda4thegood/pseuds/glinda4thegood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scully and Mulder investigate a report of men gone missing during a drinking party in the northern woods. Timeline: Post season 5, after Fight the Future movie</p>
            </blockquote>





	Invasive Species

_There are examples of invasive species altering the evolutionary pathway of native species by competitive exclusion, niche displacement, hybridization, introgression, predation, and ultimately extinction._ \- The evolutionary impact of invasive species, H.A. Mooney  & E.E. Cleland

 

Dana Scully watched the mosaic of yellow sunlight and piney greens rush past her car window. Trees clustered thickly on both sides of the road, creating a living, organic tunnel.

Mulder had chosen to leave the windows slightly open instead of turning on the air conditioning, and the air that pushed past their faces, tugging her hair from behind her ears, was full of sweet, woody odors. Washington had been baking under the late summer sun, windless and humid. But temperatures when they collected the rental car at the tiny airport in Michigan were in the 70s, with a constant breeze.

Mulder fiddled with the radio, stopping on a public radio station. He glanced at his watch. “The news should be on soon.”

They listened to the bluegrass music and local event announcements that preceded the national news. Scully's mile markers in the mental landscape she was building, her definition of what this part of the world would be like, were cautiously assembling. _Rural. Natural. Isolated._

“I wouldn’t mind taking a vacation around here.” Scully felt surprised by the words as soon as she said them. Past experiences had not encouraged a belief in the salubrious effects of nature on the body and soul. Urban areas had their pitfalls, but they were upfront and unpretentiously ugly about what they were.

“Last time we were in Michigan, you didn’t say that.” Mulder knew her too well. Her partner grinned at his own reflection in the rear-view mirror. “I wonder if they have hazelnut trees in Shiawa Creek?”

Scully grimaced. Their experience with nature in Coats Grove had been inconclusive, even by their standards, and left her with a dislike of orchards, possibly large stands of trees in general. She pulled a sheaf of papers from her briefcase, fanned them in her lap. “How much longer?”

“Ten minutes, maybe. What do you think about the reports?” Mulder had given her the documents on the plane, then slept during most of the flight. Both of them seemed to be doing a lot of sleeping during the last couple of weeks, probably a hibernation reflex brought on by their Arctic experience.

“My first impression? I thought of that movie - what was the name of it - _Fire in the Sky_? Do you know the one?”

Mulder shook his head. “I thought of it too. There are surface similarities to this case.”

“We have a group of men out in the woods, gathered to shoot the breeze and drink beer. Two of the men have a disagreement and take it away from the campfire. Shortly afterward the remaining men report a loud noise and bright light. When they look for their companions, they can’t be found.” Scully paused.

“In a panic, they file a report with the township police.” Mulder took up the narrative. “The police take a tracking dog out, come back without answers.”

“It says the dog sat down and whined in a clearing near the campfire site, then pulled its trainer back to the patrol car.” Scully restacked the papers. “What would make a tracking dog act that way?”

“Aliens smell bad? I don’t remember. I don’t remember smelling anything at all.”

“Neither do I.” Scully realized her fingers were stroking the documents, as if she were trying to absorb unwritten information by a kind of psychic Braille. Arctic cold gripped her again, freezing her body against the car seat. She took a deep breath, consciously relaxed. “We’re going to have to talk about it before much longer.”

“Couples therapy?” He touched her hand quickly, lightly. “I’ve got so much I need to talk about, I don’t know where to begin. But not now.”

“Soon.” She slipped the papers back into her case. “It looks like they sent this case straight to us. It only happened three days ago. I’ll bet someone wanted us out of Washington, occupied for a while.”

“You’re getting as bad as the Gunmen.”

His words were lightly teasing, but she could feel the unvoiced affection and uncertainty that ran just below the surface of his words and actions. They both had things that needed to be given voice, given resolution.

“Shiawa Creek.” Scully pointed at the sign as they edged out of the woods.

“The police chief said everything is on the main road.”

“Gas station ... Mulder! An A&W Drive-in! I haven’t been to one of those since I was a kid.”

“I’ll get you a float later, Scully.” They passed the library, two gift shops and a sprawling garden and feed store. “Nice little town.” Mulder pointed at the flower beds that edged both sides of the street, the oversized street markers. “There’s the police station.”

The parking lot was lined with stately old maples whose leaves were spotted with yellow and red. A wooden picnic table sat on a patch of green, and two old men looked up and waved at them as they got out of the car.

The police station was as tidy and clean inside as it had been outside. A receptionist with rather big hair looked up as they entered, eyes bright and interested as they examined Mulder’s shoulders and Scully’s suit.

“You’ll be the FBI agents.” She smiled widely. “Ben’s expecting you.” She bent to her switchboard. “You’ve got company, boss.”

He was a big man, Scully realized with some wonder as he walked toward them. Probably 6’8” or 6’9”, and pushing 300, pounds that were distributed over a large frame as muscle rather than fat. He had a nose like a hatchet and his hair was light brown, curly about the edges. When he bent slightly to greet her and shake her hand, Scully saw a bald spot, like a monk’s tonsure, nestled in the center of the curls.

“Agent Scully? Agent Mulder? I’m Benjamin Otter, Shiawa Township chief of police. Call me Ben.” His grip was warm and firm. “Always a pleasure to greet the FBI.”

“How many chances do you get?” Scully asked, still staring at him with fascination.

“Couple times a year lately.” Otter smiled as he shook Mulder’s hand. “We’ve got an active group of the Michigan Militia here.”

“One of the missing men was a militia member.” Mulder was staring at his fingers. Scully wondered if the handshake had been a little firmer for him.

“Do you want to sit down in my office, or take a ride out to the camp site?”

“Let’s go out to the site.”

 

Scully rode in the back seat of the police car. She had watched with amused disbelief as Ben Otter folded his length behind the wheel. He caught her eyes in the rear view mirror and grinned.

“I know, I don’t have much leg room. I’m lucky to have good knees.”

“Never played football?” Mulder asked with disbelief. “I would have thought ...”

“Nope. I always had part-time jobs through high school, didn’t have time for sports.”

“You grew up here?” Scully asked.

“Yes. One of a thousand kids delivered by Doc Dillon. John, Sam and Farley were delivered by Doc Dillon, too.”

“John Dove and Sam Johnson are the two men reported missing?” Mulder’s voice held a question.

“Two plus one. We’ve got another disappearance. Farley Adams was one of the men at the original incident. His wife called this morning, says he left sometime yesterday evening to go looking for John and Sam. He hasn’t come home yet.” Ben Otter snorted. “Normally I wouldn’t worry. It hasn’t been 24 hours. But I sent my deputy up here this morning and he didn’t find Farley’s Harley.”

“Farley’s Harley?” Mulder’s face twitched.

“Actually it’s a Yamaha.” Otter grinned, shrugged. “The guys like to tease him, he gets off on it.” He turned off the blacktop road onto a gravel surface. Pines took over from the hardwoods, casting moss green shadows over the road.

“State land here. Good hunting, if you’re interested. White-tail deer, turkeys. A few elk wander in from further north. Can't hunt those, though.”

“Were they out here hunting?” Scully asked.

Otter’s eyes in the mirror were derisive as he looked back at her. “City girl. Bow season doesn’t start for some time. They were out at Adams’ Camp, drinking.”

“Adams. That’s the name of the latest missing man?”

“Yes. He’s been coming out here to screw off, poach, party, whatnot since he was old enough to steal his old man’s truck. His buddies named the camp.” The car nosed off the gravel road to coast along a hummocky two-track full of wide sandy spots and protruding rocks.

“You can get a car in and out of here?” Scully intercepted the look and answered her own question. “Okay. I’m a city girl.”

“She’s got a sense of humor.” Otter’s eyes sparkled. “Rare thing in a beautiful woman.”

“Scully has a lot of rare qualities.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” she protested automatically.

The two-track ended in a loop of turn-around space. Otter parked the car, and there was silence as the noise of the engine faded.

“Tell us the story as you heard it,” Scully looked out at the tangle of dead logs and thick undergrowth of the forest. This was more like the nature she was wary of. Things could hide in nature like this.

Otter opened his door, stuck one leg out with a sigh. “There were five of them up here that night. Farley, John and Sam, Lucas Prine and Dave Bell. Sam had been at the casino the night before and dropped a couple of thousand dollars. After they’d been drinking a while, he started picking at John.” Otter blew out a big breath and let his head rock back on his shoulders, eyes closing. “Sam’s an idiot. He’s also a militia member. John’s about half Odawa, and Sam’s personal observations on the Native American Mafia just didn’t go down well. A lot of the locals agree with those observations, drunk or sober. So when John invited Sam to take a walk down to the clearing, the others kept drinking and waited for them to work it out.”

“They didn’t want to watch?” Mulder asked. “It seems like a fist fight would be good entertainment at a drinking party.”

“Normally I’d agree. But John has managed to stay friends with most of the men he’s grown up with, even when they exhibit streaks of white superiority. He’s got a funny code of his own; he would have wanted to pound the shit out of Sam in private, resolve it between the two of them.” Otter opened his eyes, and his face betrayed deep unhappiness. “I like them both. I’ve had a bad feeling since Lucas, Dave and Farley stumbled into my office. When the dog turned tail out of here, I started thinking of John and Sam in the past-tense. When I got word from downstate you two were coming –” He ran out of words, shaking his head. “You’re the _alien_ trackers, right?”

“We look into unexplained disappearances. It's almost never aliens,” Scully said shortly. “What did the men say when they reported the incident?”

Otter's expression was skeptical. “Almost never? They were at the fire, drinking beer. Lucas and Dave had bet Farley that Sam would get his nose broken this time. They were laughing, half-listening for sounds of a fight, although they were too far from the clearing to hear anything unless the guys started fighting their way back to the camp. Dave’s the one who described what happened next, you can check the notes in the office for exact wording. I put it down, shorthand, as he said it. I was afraid somebody’d shot somebody out here.

“Dave said there was a noise, like an enormous vacuum cleaner, or like jet engines heard from only a few feet away. Then there was this light.” Otter paused. “He said the light knocked them flat. Not the sound, not any kind of explosion. It was the light, he said. When the light had gone, it took them a while to get their bearings. When they went looking for John and Sam, they weren’t there. I know fear when I see it. When they got to my office, they were wild with it.” Otter eased the rest of his body out of the car. “Come on.”

He led the way down a footpath, moving gracefully and quietly for a man of his bulk. The sandy firepit was ringed with stones, surrounded by dead logs obviously used as seating. Two empty Bud Light cans were still in the cold firepit.

“Adams’ Camp.” Otter gestured at the small opening in the woods. “The big clearing is through there.” He picked up the path on the other side of the camp site.

The woods pressed closer with thick brush, and a green, wet, decaying odor. There would be slime and mold somewhere, Scully was sure of it. Slime and mold and dead things.

“There’s a river close by,” Scully said to the back of Mulder’s head. She wasn’t sure how the certainty had come to her. Perhaps it was the taste of the air in her mouth, the way the skin under her ears tightened in reaction to the coolness that seeped out of the forest.

“The Little Shiawa.” Otter looked back over his shoulder. “Empties into the Big Shiawa, leads to Lake Michigan eventually.”

Spring to creek to river to ocean. Fungus thriving on dead logs. All that litter under those towering pines was only nature recycling plants and animals whose time had come and gone, fueling new life, maintaining the circle.

Scully found herself breathing harder than could be explained by a short hike.

 _Dear God,_ she breathed a silent prayer. _I can’t believe this is your will. The circle’s been breached._

“Scully, look.” Mulder stopped dead ahead of her. “Blackberries.” He reached into a mass of leaves, held up a fat cone-shaped berry.

“Good late crop this year.” Otter grinned at them. “Hope you like blackberry pie. Shell probably has one waiting for you in the cabin.”

“Shell? Your wife?” Mulder asked, grabbing at berries as they passed loaded bushes.

“I’m not married. Shelley’s our receptionist. She has a thing about visiting Feds,” Otter laughed, a full bass laugh. “Are you married, Agent Mulder?”

“In self-defense I think I should say _yes_ to that question, but I’m not.”

The clearing opened before them, with a fringe of thigh-high wheat-colored grasses bordering the empty circle of land. A couple of low bushes grew in the bright sun, but no trees. Otter and Scully hung back as Mulder crossed to the center of the clearing, and stood looking around. The grasses were matted and flattened in places, but nothing else looked out of place.

Otter saw her looking at the grass. “Deer. Probably.”

“You didn’t find other physical evidence?”

“None.” Otter pointed. “The dog sat down there. Approximately five feet into the clearing. He pointed his nose at the sky and howled, then hauled his trainer back up that path, back to the squad car. Jack was going to get another ‘hound, try again.”

“When?” Mulder stooped, poked at the dirt.

“Later this afternoon.”

“I’d like to be here.” Mulder stood. “I’d like to talk to the two remaining witnesses. And Scully can interview Farley Adams’ wife.”

A cloud crossed between the sun and the ground, throwing a shadow on the yellow grasses, over Otter’s face. “Hildy Adams. I’ll have my deputy take you out there, Agent Scully.”

“Thank you.” Scully took several steps into the clearing. She closed her eyes, hearing confusion and panic rise from memory. _They’d been like animals trapped without cover on that bridge, in the open under a sky where clouds could now mean lurking death. And human beings had died like vermin being exterminated._

“Scully?” Mulder’s voice recalled her to the present.

“It’s nothing. I think we’re done here.”

They trooped back down the path single file. As they passed the camp site, Mulder stepped along side Otter for a few yards. “There’s a military base in the area?”

“You mean Camp Kewadin? That’s national guard, nearly 30 miles southeast.” Otter frowned. “I checked with them, they do have helicopter traffic that buzzes over us occasionally. Nothing was happening that night. No training exercises going on right now, no range testing.”

Otter was silent until they left the two-track and picked up the gravel road once again. “I don’t think I’m going to find bodies on this one, and I have to be frank: this is a novel, frightening thought. Have you seen anything like this before?”

“We’ve seen similar incidents.” Scully looked at the big man’s fingers griping the steering wheel with enough force to turn his knuckles pale pink against tanned skin. “But bodies usually show up at some point in the investigation.”

“I’d ask if that was good or bad, but I’m pretty sure the answer’s not that simple.” Otter cleared his throat. “Well, it won’t be hard to find Lucas and Dave. They broke up the bar last night, so they’re rooming back at the station.They’re still scared; I think they were relieved to be behind bars. They said Farley started the evening with them, but had to leave around 7:00 to help Hildy with something.”

“And she called this morning -- what time?” Scully asked.

“About 10:00. She called the jail to see if he’d been locked up with the others. When I told her no, she said he’d left about 8:00 last night, swearing he was going to find John and Sam.” Otter was looking at her in the rear view mirror again.

“What is it you want to tell me?” Scully saw his face change as he returned his attention to the road.

“Farley Adams was a shit. The rest of them aren’t so bad. But Farley ... if we never find him, there isn’t anyone who will really be sorry.”

“Not even his wife?”

“Damn it.” Gravel shot from under the car’s wheels as Otter pulled onto the blacktop and headed back toward town. “Hildy’s special. I don’t know if I can explain it to you in a way you’ll understand.” He drove for a few more miles without speaking. “Hildy grew up with her pa for both mother and father. Their homestead covers 80 acres of some of the best land around here; left natural in the main. Worth a fortune now, with every downstate Detroiter looking for an up-north condo facing a new golf course.

“Old man LaVoix could grow sweet corn on bare rock. He was ahead of his time, or maybe behind it, depending on your point of view. He grew antique vegetable varieties, fancy green stuff, baby veg -- to sell to restaurants. He didn’t use chemicals, just organic farming techniques his family has refined and passed down generation after generation. And he taught it all to Hildy as she grew up.”

“What happened to her mother?” Scully asked.

“Died in childbirth. Hildy’s only got her picture. And LaVoix was the youngest of his generation, and the last. Hildy’s the last of that line.” Otter let another mile roll past. “She’s my age, I grew up with her. She was a shy kid, real smart. But Hildy never had time for kid stuff, she worked the farm with LaVoix every spare moment of her life. Until she graduated from high school. The old man had a bee in his bonnet to send her to college for some business training. He’d never gotten much education, but he knew Hildy had a first-rate mind. He figured between her experience on the land, and some exposure to the world of business, she might do better with the farm than he had. More than he loved Hildy, he loved that land. He wanted to die believing it would be secure for generations after he’d gone.”

Otter sighed, cleared his throat. “He died of a heart attack while she was away. Hildy was devastated. She left college, came back home, took up where LaVoix had dropped in the middle of the tomato cages. And about then Farley returned from some big trouble out west. He graduated with us, too.” Otter slanted a look at Mulder. “Farley played football. He was class bad boy, into half the female knickers in town. What do women see in that kind?”

Scully met his eyes in the mirror, shrugged. “Don’t ask me.”

“I’d have thought an FBI agent might have more insight into human behavior,” Otter grinned back at her. His expression sobered as he continued. “Hildy and her father always had a stall at the Farmer’s Market in town on Saturday mornings. She kept that up. And Farley started hanging around, sweet-talking at her. I don’t think Hildy’d ever had a steady boyfriend. She’s not stupid, just shy, female ... and lonely, I guess. Farley talked her into marrying him about a year ago.”

“A mistake?” Scully asked, knowing the answer from Otter’s face.

“I think so. Don’t know what Hildy thinks, she’s not a complainer. But after two months of marriage Farley was back in the bar nights, making time with the waitress d’jour.”

“What kind of trouble was he in out west?” Mulder asked.

“Gambling, I’d guess. He still owes money to a lot of people 'round here.”

“Any out-of-towners show up, looking for him?”

Otter nodded. “Matter of fact. Two weeks ago someone drove his pickup away. He had a nice, new extended cab GMC that he liked to polish. That’s the extent of any collection action I know about.”

Shiawa Creek appeared through the trees. “My sister has a cabin on the lake; I take care of it for her when she’s not up here. It’s empty for the next two weeks. You can stay there, save the Bureau some money.”

 

Scully sat in the front seat beside Deputy “Speedy” Huisinga and watched nature pass at a stately, deliberate tempo.

“Why do they call you Speedy?” She hadn’t meant to ask, but as the speedometer hovered around 40, she found the words escaping from thought to vocalization.

He looked down at the dashboard, smiled. “Nickname. You miss a lot if you hurry, you know Agent Scully?”

She smiled back and relaxed against the seat. It was a beautiful afternoon. Color had begun to touch the forest, and there were masses of waving purple spiked flowers in bloom running along the road. “You’re right, Deputy. Especially in our business.”

He flushed a little, and held himself straight behind the steering wheel; flattered she would include him in her profession. He slowed the car more, activated his turning signal even though they were the only car on the road, and nosed down a gravel driveway that wound through a tunnel of trees.

When the trees parted, Scully pushed to the edge of her seat and stared.

“Beautiful, ain’t it.” Deputy Huisinga let the patrol car coast to a resting place in front of the house.

“Beautiful.” Scully thought how insipid the description was as she got out of the car. “Does Martha Stewart live here?” she murmured.

“Stewarts live over east a ways.” Huisinga frowned. “This is the LaVoix place.” He walked up the fieldstone path toward the house, pausing near a door carved with floral designs. He read the note written on the blackboard on the wall beside the door. “Hildy’s down by the river.”

The car radio stuttered with static. “Excuse me for a minute.”

Scully stepped back and studied the asymmetrical lines of the house. It was built out of fieldstone, and the wooden-shingled roof followed a rolling, sloping path that gave it the look of a mushroom cap. There were flower boxes at the windows, full of pink and white geraniums.

On the eastern side of the house the gardens began -- or ended, Scully realized, depending on which direction you were walking. Rows of green broken with bright colored splashes of flowers or fruit stretched the length of two football fields behind the house.

“I need to run over to the Blair farm.” Deputy Huisinga waved at her. “Take about a half hour, forty minutes tops. Follow that path on the other side of the garden, through those pines,” he pointed to a towering cluster of green. “Path will take you to the river. Hildy’s note says she’s down there. I’ll be back for you right soon.”

Scully looked between the far end of the garden and the deputy. “Okay.”

He looked relieved. “Thanks, Agent Scully. Phil’s cows are out in the road again.”

It was a different lifestyle, Dana Scully mused as she walked through the garden. She took the direct line toward the pines, slowing to inspect fruit that hung in clusters on vines draped over tomato cages on both sides of the row. Her fingers brushed the leaves, and the strong, musky odor of tomato greens filled the air. Tiny pear-shaped yellow and red tomatoes swung like edible bells from strong stems.

Scully picked a yellow pear tomato, popped it in her mouth. She closed her eyes as the fruit exploded with seedy flavor under her teeth. It tasted like sun and fresh rain water and the essence of all tomatoes. The taste of nature could be seductive, she thought. Engage one sense pleasurably, and it was easier to fool another sense.

It was cool under the pines. River smells intensified as Scully followed the well-marked pathway, more wet wood and organics-rich earth than slime here. It was so quiet that when a shrill noise seemed to erupt from the air behind her, Scully thought her skin was trying to crawl off her body.

"Dammit. Nature." Scully studied the split in the path ahead of her. Cattails on her right, nearly hidden behind a pile of dead vegetation, faded and yellow on the bottom, fresher green on top. More pines on the left. Scully chose the right hand path, noticing the dead plants held the dying remnants of the same purple flowers she had noticed everywhere on her ride to the farm.

Scully found the woman on the riverbank. She was dressed in waders and a tattered t-shirt that gave Scully a good view of vibrant purple bruises on her arms just above and below her elbows. She stood upright as Scully stopped on the path, and threw a bunch of plants onto another stack of uprooted vegetation.

“Hildy Adams?”

“LaVoix.” Hildy LaVoix stepped away from the mucky area she had been standing in, found the firmer footing of the path. Her hair was light brown, streaked with sun. She was a tall, slender woman. Her face would have been plainly attractive in a healthy way, except it was marked by a livid purple and red cut and bruise on her left cheek and eye.

“And you are?” She returned Scully's thorough examination.

“Dana Scully. FBI.”

Hildy LaVoix looked at the badge, removed the gloves she had been wearing. “You’re here about the disappearances.”

“Yes.” Scully looked at the waving spires behind the woman, looked at the freshly uprooted stack of purple-tipped vegetation. “They’re beautiful. Why are you pulling them up?”

“Because I am a living anachronism -- a successful, bone-headed Michigan farmer?” She smiled at Scully. “They’re alien invaders.”

Scully felt a thrill of revulsion at the words. “Excuse me?”

“Not native to this ecosystem. Purple loosestrife, invasive, aggressive. Crowding out delicate native plants that only live in northern Michigan wetlands.”

“But -- they’re everywhere!” Scully felt the same quality of disturbance she’d experienced at the clearing. “I saw miles of them.”

“Yes.” Hildy’s face was unreadable as she looked at the pile of dying plants. “But I won’t let them thrive on my property. Not without a fight.”

Scully jumped as the noise burst from the air behind her again. “What the hell is that?” Her head swiveled between the trees and Hildy.

“City girl.” Hildy was laughing, and the laughter made her beautiful in spite of the bruise on her face. “Tree frogs. Come back to the house with me, I’ve put in my time out here for the day.”

Scully followed her back along the path, remembering the way Ben Otter had moved through the woods. This woman moved like a wild thing, sure-footed and confident in her own habitat. They exited under the pines, and Hildy slowed, intent on her garden as they passed between rows of bean vines. She picked a bug off a leaf, stooped to crush it with a rock. She broke a handful of yellow beans from a vine, offered one to Scully.

“I ate a tomato,” Scully admitted. “It was wonderful.” She chewed on the bean.

“They’re good this year. Decent amount of natural rainfall. Warm nights. Doesn’t happen here that often.” Hildy stopped at the blackboard, erased the message, then stripped off her waders and hung them on a peg next to the blackboard. “Welcome to my home.” She opened the door, gestured for Scully to enter.

The kitchen was overwhelming.

Scully sat down on the high-backed oak barstool Hildy had indicated and watched the woman wash her hands in an oversized stainless steel sink. It smelled like fruit and honey and dill and exotic spices, smelled so potently that Scully began to wonder if a person could get drunken on smell alone.

Copper kettles and pans hung along one wall studded with pegs carved like animal heads. Jars full of brightly colored clear and chunky substances lined the counters. A bee buzzed around a mammoth bouquet of Queen Anne’s lace and wildflowers near the window by the sink, giving Scully another moment of nature revulsion.

Hildy pushed the screen back, shooed the bee outside without fear. She filled a pint-sized tea kettle and placed in on a burner that flared into blue flame at the touch of a knob.

“Now. Ask away.” Hildy sat facing her on the other side of the bar, forearms resting casually on her thighs.

“You aren’t surprised to see an FBI agent?” Scully watched her face. The woman's brown eyes shifted, hidden depths and currents on the surface disturbed, then disappearing.

“Weird noises and lights, three men gone? No, I’m not surprised.”

“How did you hurt your face? Your arms?”

Hildy touched her eye. “Stepped on a rake, handle smacked me. I’m not usually careless. You pay for careless behavior in the end.” Nothing but matter-of-fact, unrevealing surface courtesy was apparent in her words. “Farley did the arms. He was scared, mad. I wasn’t supportive.”

“When’s the last time you saw him?”

“Last night. About 7:30. I had to crate up a shipment of jam, he was going to help me. But he was too worked up about John and Sam. He left to look for them, so he said.”

“So he said?" Scully waited for a moment. "You don’t think that’s where he went?”

Hildy shrugged. “I wasn’t implying anything. Except where Farley says he’s going, and where he goes, are usually two different stories.”

“You aren’t worried about him?” Scully saw steam beginning to drift from the kettle, saw the polite attention in Hildy’s eyes and nothing more.

“No. I called Ben as a courtesy, in case Farley’s not coming home had something to do with what happened to John and Sam. Otherwise I might not have called.”

“Your husband owed people money.” Scully made it a statement.

“Yes,” she agreed politely.

“Do you want your husband found?”

“I hope they find John and Sam. I don’t care about Farley. He won’t be staying here again.” Hildy stood. “Would you like some raspberry tea? When is Speedy coming back?”

“He said a half hour or so. Phil’s cows were out?”

Hildy laughed over her shoulder as she measured loose tea into a ball. “Then it will be an hour, at least.”

“How did you know Deputy Huisinga brought me here?”

“No car out there. He’d be the one Ben sent.” Hildy poured the heated water into a crackle-glazed blue teapot. “I want fresh berries for supper. Like to take a walk with me while this steeps?”

“All right.” Scully slid off the stool, saw Hildy looking at her feet. “They’re not sneakers, but comfortable enough.”

“I won’t take you far into the Bramble.” Hildy rummaged in a cupboard, came up with two small plastic buckets. “Here.”

Scully took the bucket, followed Hildy outside. “What’s the bramble?”

Hildy slowed, let Scully walk beside her as they passed row after row of neatly tended herbs and flowers. “The Bramble? You’ll see.”

The air outside was heavier with scent than it had been in the kitchen. “What’s that smell?”

Hildy grinned. “Blackberries ... leavings on the compost pile, and fresh ones in the Bramble. I make jam, jelly, pies, cobblers, liqueurs ... I rarely even notice the smell anymore.”

Undergrowth crowded against the path like a green wall. Blackberry bushes grew in profusion, loaded with fruit in various stages of ripeness.

“Ouch!” Scully pulled a branch of pickers off her leg.

“It gets a lot worse.” Hildy turned to look at her. “Don’t weave so much. Walk straight down the center of the path.”

Scully looked at the six-inch wide depression in the ground under her feet. “I wasn’t weaving,” she said defensively.

“Okay. Reach for the easy ones.”

The path seemed to dead end in a 6-foot-high barrier of prickly green plants.

“This is a jungle,” Scully said, around a mouthful of blackberries that had taken a detour from her bucket.

“Northern Michigan jungle,” Hildy agreed. “But unusual even for around here. Can’t hunt in the Bramble, can’t walk much further. Father said, his father said, and his father said there’s a sinkhole at the center of the Bramble. Even in the winter you can’t get through. There’s water and quicksand, and rattlesnakes, too. But there’s plenty of berries all along the edges, no reason to go in further.”

Their buckets filled quickly.

“Let’s go.” Hildy swatted at a fly who was buzzing between their heads. “Deer flies found us.”

Back in the kitchen they drank the hot, fruity tea. Scully drank hers without the offered honey, and watched Hildy clean the berries they had picked.

“What do you think happened to the missing men?” she asked finally, thinking how naturally silence filled the spaces of this kitchen.

Hildy’s face finally reflected some unidentifiable emotion. “I’ve been wondering about it, Agent Scully. I grew up with those men. I can tell you what didn’t happen: no foul play. No accidental or deliberate shootings. No place for them to disappear out near Adams’ Camp.”

“No quicksand or rattlesnakes?”

“Not out there.” Hildy looked out the window. “I hear a car. Speedy’s back.” She opened a cupboard, took out a small bottle filled with purple-black liquid and handed it to Scully. “I know you’re on duty, try a shot of that before bedtime. If the air here doesn’t make you sleep like a baby, that will.”

“What is it?”

“Blackberry liqueur.”

“Well – thank you.” Scully slid the bottle into her purse. "If anything comes to mind, Sheriff Otter will relay it to us."

 

Deputy Huisinga waited, leaning against the car. He looked up and smiled as they walked toward him.

“Hildy. No word on Farley?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Where’s Dilly? I expected to get my usual face cleaning, but she hasn’t come to try and pin me yet.”

Hildy’s voice was different enough when she answered that Scully stared hard at her.

“Dilly’s dead.” Hildy turned around to look at her garden. “Somebody shot her, Speedy.”

“Jesus.” The deputy was clearly upset. “You didn’t call Ben?”

“I couldn’t.” The words were wooden. “I will before you get back.” Hildy LaVoix walked away from them, toward the house.

“Who’s Dilly?” Scully snapped her seatbelt, looked at the visibly disturbed Deputy next to her.

“Hildy’s Irish wolfhound.” He let the car roll down the driveway. “Beautiful animal. Loved Hildy, Hildy loved her.” Huisinga shook his head. “I can’t believe anyone would shoot her. She didn’t run deer, wasn’t hostile to people. Never left Hildy’s land as far as I know.”

“You ever see her with bruises before?” Scully watched his face as he answered hesitantly.

“Farley was a physical shit. But I never saw her face marked like that. She told Ben she stepped on a rake, and I think Ben believed her on that. She said Farley was rough with her last night. I don’t think Hildy would lie about it, if Farley’d hit her, she’d say so.”

“And the dog? How did Farley Adams feel about his wife’s dog?”

“Hellfire. They didn’t like each other, nothing major.”

“If he was attacking Hildy?”

“Dilly would defend her, no question.” Deputy Speedy was staring down the road. “Ben will ask, of course. If Farley shot Dilly.”

“If Farley Adams shot her dog, would Hildy LaVoix shoot him?”

Deputy Huisinga stiffened, then relaxed. “Good question. I’d say no. She’d be more likely to poison him, let him die in agony. She knows ways to do it. But Hildy’s not a killer.”

 _Anyone’s a killer_ , Scully thought looking at the waving purple flowers they were passing. _And is it murder to uproot an alien invader from your native soil?_ The thought surprised her. She suppressed the visions that spilled out of the depths in her mind with near panic. _Don’t go in there,_ she cautioned herself. _Not alone. Not yet._

Deputy Huisinga drove back to the police station without further words. When they pulled into the parking lot beside the rental car, he broke the silence.

“They’re back out at Adams’ Camp with another dog. Ben asked me to take you to the cabin, you can unpack. Your Agent Mulder left the keys in the car. If you don’t have anything else you’d like to do right now?”

“That would be fine.” Scully slid out of the patrol car, and found the keys in the ignition of the rental car. As she followed the patrol car back onto the road, she wondered if the rural atmosphere was getting to Mulder like it was getting to her.

They turned by a chunky structure that looked as if it had been built of Lincoln logs, identified with an attractively carved and painted golden and green wooden sign. “Hiawatha Inn.” Scully could smell fish frying and more fruity odors as they cruised past. The patrol car continued down the gravel road, stopping when the road ended in a parking area punctuated with a split wooden bar fence. The wood was weathered and greying, covered with climbing wild roses.

“May I help you carry your stuff up, Agent Scully?” Deputy Huisinga hovered as she opened the trunk and extracted their overnight bags.

“You can carry Agent Mulder’s things.” She smiled at him and handed over the bags. “What lake is that?”

The path to the cabin was slippery with moss. Deputy Huisinga kept an eye on his feet as he answered her question. “Hiawatha Lake. Good fishing. I took a six-foot sturgeon out of there last winter.”

“I guess I won’t be going swimming here.” Scully looked at him intently, gauging the extent of exaggeration.

He laughed at her. “No fish would nibble your toes in there, Agent Scully.” He led the way onto a sturdy deck that ran around the outside of the log cabin, and continued out of sight. “This is a nice place.”

It was a nice place. Scully stood inside the door and looked at the comfortable furniture, huge fireplace, and spacious open kitchen area. A faint smell of woodsmoke hung in the air, tantalizing and pungent.

“Shell sent her sister up here to make up the beds. Two bedrooms through there, bathroom through there.” Deputy Huisinga walked to the far wall, a floor to ceiling glass door. “You can sit out here and have coffee, watch the lake.”

Her nose had almost been desensitized, but the odors of pastry and syrupy fruit beckoned her to the bar that stretched between kitchen and living room area. “This would be Shell's pie.”

“And a few more staples in the fridge.” The deputy gave her a half salute and grinned. “See you later. By the way, there’s no phone out here.”

“I have a phone, so does Agent Mulder.”

“Technology’s a wonderful thing.” Deputy Huisinga paused at the screen door. “Do you think you can find John and Sam ... and Farley?”

“I don’t know.” Scully saw his face fill with acceptance as he turned away. Deputy Huisinga didn't think they would find the men, either.

 

“Hey, Scully.” Mulder stopped just inside the screen door, sniffed the air. “I smell coffee.”

“Coffee and blackberry pie. It’s good.” Scully looked up from the Agatha Christie mystery she was reading, marked the page with an old envelope that had fallen out when she’d first taken the book from the living room bookshelves.

Mulder tossed his coat over the back of the couch. “The second dog was a bust, too.” He uncovered the pie, looked at the generously sized hole in the pastry. “It must be good.”

Scully carried her empty mug to the counter, poured more coffee as he cut a huge piece of pie and transferred it to the waiting plate. She watched the rapid disappearance of crust and berries, watched as he cut a second piece.

“That was great!” He looked at his plate as if thinking about licking it clean.

“Rinse it off,” Scully directed. “What did the men have to say?”

“Nothing new.” Mulder stacked his dish in the drainer and poured coffee for himself. “How’s the lake?”

“I haven’t walked down yet.” She went to the patio doors, opened them to a flood of cool, wet air. “Let’s sit on the deck.”

They made themselves comfortable on padded lawn furniture. The lake was a dark reflective surface that showed an upside-down version of the shoreline. As they watched something broke the stillness of the water, and a circular ring of silver ripples distorted the perfect reflection.

“Good fishing down there, I’ll bet.” Mulder sipped his coffee. “Lucas Prine and Dave Bell repeated the story Sheriff Otter told us. They can’t explain what happened, and they’re scared.” He changed his focus from the lake to her face. “What about Farley Adams wife? Learn anything there?”

Scully shook her head. “At this point I’d say his disappearance isn’t attributable to the same reason the other two men are missing. The incident in the woods may have been the catalyst, however. He apparently owes money to people. He’s been abusing his wife, and possibly shot her dog last night. Either he’s left town in a hurry, or his own wife killed him.”

“Which do you think?”

“No evidence of either, yet.” Scully met his eyes with difficulty. “Is it possible the abductions have begun again? They lost so many of the implants.” She found it took conscious, physical effort to make the words leave her throat.

“Scully.” He said her name like it was a prayer. “I just don’t know any more.”

“I’m tired of being a pawn.” Emotions she had dammed behind an unbreachable barrier were ready to burst from confinement, and it was going to be messy, raging when it happened. “Aren’t you?”

Mulder was silent.

“We know so much, and we know so little. We’ve been used in the past, and I see no reason to believe they’re through trying to use us.” She forced herself, through a monumental act of will, to remain calm, analytical. “I don’t care if the agency to blame is human, inhuman or a combination of the two. I’ve been frightened, violated and robbed. We’ve been walking blinkered on a path between denial and insanity. It’s time to find another road.”

“I’ve tried, Scully. I’ve done everything I know how to do.”

She could hardly hear his words. “You tried to do it alone so much of the time. You need a navigator.” She reached for his hand. “Mulder. We have to tackle this thing together, without shutting each other out.”

“You didn’t see your own face from outside the tank.” His fingers clenched under hers. “I knew when I found you I’d never really been afraid before that moment.”

Scully returned the pressure with her own fingers, convinced in a way she could not translate into words that there was enough strength and fire between them to melt the ice from the memories and terror. A movement of color made her look away from his face. She released his hand. “Look. Fireflies, down by the lakeshore.”

They watched the shimmering dance of tiny green lights swirl around the bushes near the water.

“I haven’t seen that many fireflies in one place since I was a little girl.” Scully stood and walked to the front of the deck. “Melissa loved them. She used to run and dance through them while I was catching them in mason jars.”

“You were a little scientist, even as a kid, Scully?” Mulder’s voice still sounded far away.

“I was interested in how things worked. I still am.” She turned her back on the lake, faced her partner. “Melissa used to call them the Eyes of the Goddess. I always wondered what she thought she meant by that.”

“I’m so sorry.” The words sounded as if they had been pulled out of a deep part of his body. “Scully, I’m so sorry.”

“So am I.” She knelt beside his chair. “What are we going to do about it?”

A sudden flash of lightning split the sky as she waited for his answer, turning the fireflies to afterimage specks in the back of her eyes.

“Holy shit.” Mulder stood and stared at the sky. “That came out of nowhere.”

Clouds boiled overhead, and the low rumble of thunder vibrated in the distance. Another bolt of lightning shivered across the dark, then another.

“It didn’t look like rain. Still doesn't.” Scully followed him into the house, pulling the patio door shut behind her.

The night behind them turned to day with a light and fury that threw them both to the floor.

“My god.” Scully found her nose inches from a rag rug. Her wrists were trembling when she pushed herself upright. “What was that?”

Mulder held the side of his head where he’d struck it against the corner of the kitchen bar. “It had an almost nuclear quality. Lightning, maybe? Very close?”

“It wasn’t that close.” Scully watched rain hiss off the deck, accompanied by irregular chunks of hail.

Mulder’s phone rang. He answered, nodding as he listened. “We’ll drive down to the corner by the inn and wait for you.” He shut the phone. “That was Sheriff Otter. They got a 911 call that something exploded near here.”

Scully grabbed her purse and jacket, and followed him into the rain, slipping down the path to the car. It was nearly impossible to see the road as they waited at the corner near the inn. Rain streamed over their windshield in a waterfall, far outpacing efforts of the washers to keep a clear field of vision.

They saw the flashing lights, and pulled onto the road behind the patrol car as it passed.

"Going to follow the lights. The road's nearly invisible. Yell if you see guard posts or landmarks."

“Or brake lights!”

“Next time you can drive.” Mulder pulled the car to a stop behind the patrol car, and threw open his door.  
Ben Otter was standing in a driveway, soaked to the skin, talking to an old man wearing bib overalls, holding a rickety umbrella over their heads. He turned as they approached, rain twining his curls into wet coils around his forehead and cheeks, running off the slope of his nose.

“Don thinks a plane crashed, but he’s not sure. He was looking out his bathroom window at the back pasture when it happened. Something in the sky got hit pretty hard.” Otter passed a hand over his face, trying to wipe the water away. “That’s way back in the woods. It’s going to be difficult getting back there.”

“You have flashlights? Which direction?” Mulder scanned the tree line behind the farmhouse.

“Jeez a-mighty. I ‘spose you’ve got to try.” The old farmer gestured at a pole barn beside the house. “Got some lights and slickers in there. Come on.”

Scully ended up with a voluminous over-garment that flapped around her ankles. She rolled the sleeves up to a manageable length and settled the hood on her wet hair.

Farmer Don handed out battery-powered lanterns, stuffed a wad of chewing tobacco under his lip, then led them back into the rain.

They slipped and slid through the black, wet tangle. The further in they went, the stronger the smell of ozone and something scorched became. It left a peculiar aftertaste in Scully's mouth, something nasty and vaguely familiar.

She tried to keep abreast of Mulder, but he outpaced even Otter's long legs. When the men stopped walking, and Scully pushed alongside them, she found herself standing on the outer edge of a smoking crater. Trees had been splintered and uprooted; smoking debris littered the ground.

“If it was a plane, ain’t no one left to speak to it.” The old farmer scuffed at a piece of metallic wreckage.

They walked further into the zone of destruction, lights dancing over ripped earth, smoldering vegetation and more bits and pieces of bent metal.

“Don’s right. If this was a plane, no one survived.” Otter swung his light round one last time. “We’ll come back in the morning.”

“I’ll bet in the morning this place is crawling with faceless DOD boys.” Mulder muttered to Scully under his breath.

“I’m not going to take that bet.” Scully turned to follow Otter.

“Scully.” Mulder sucked in a breath of surprise, playing his light across the woods on the crater’s far side. “I just saw a naked woman.”

“You saw what?” She turned and added her light to his. “Are you crazy?”

“Maybe a survivor. She went in there.” Mulder started across the crater.

“Don’t be a fool.” Ben Otter caught him three steps in, and restrained him with one large hand. “Nobody’s going in there. That’s the back side of the Bramble. You wouldn’t get far, and you wouldn’t get back.”

Farmer Don was chuckling. “FBI don’t teach you how to tell the difference between a deer and a naked woman? I can’t wait to go in for coffee tomorrow. The boys‘ll like that’un.”

Scully searched Mulder’s face in the bobbing light. “What did you see?” she asked softly.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. For a moment I thought it was – it could have been a deer,” he shrugged. “Let’s get out of here.”

 

Scully remained silent as they drove back to the cabin. When the noise from the car motor died away she sat listening to the rain without making a move to leave the car. “What’s left? They’re giving Prine and Bell lie detector tests in the morning. We could ask the National Guard camp about might have happened out there tonight. And by tomorrow afternoon we won’t have any new answers, or anywhere else to look. We’ll be driving to that tiny airport, heading back to Washington.”

“I’m cold, Scully. You’re shivering. Let’s get to the cabin, dry off and go to sleep.”

She looked down at the purse sitting on the seat between them. “Did you really see a naked woman, Mulder?” Her fingers worked stiffly at the purse’s latch, groping for the small bottle she’d put there that afternoon.

“Probably not.” He watched her twist the piece of cork out of the bottle with a tiny popping noise. “What’s that?”

Scully tilted the bottle to her mouth, stuck her tongue gingerly on the rim. “Blackberry liqueur.” She rolled the drop of liquid over the roof of her mouth. “Not bad.” She upended the bottle, swallowed half the liqueur. “Whew! Try it.”

“I can smell it.” He took the bottle from her hand, tipped the rest of the dark liqueur into his mouth. “Um. Warm all the way down. When did you start carrying a flask, Scully?”

“Hildy LaVoix made it.” She replaced the cork in the empty bottle, returned the bottle to her purse. “I don’t think the local police will try very hard to solve Farley Adam’s disappearance.”

“You think she’s responsible?”

“I have questions, and no answers. It’s getting old, Mulder.” She opened her door. “Race you for the shower.”

~~~~~

 _I knew when I saw her that she was one of yours._

 _The signs were there; any of your daughters might know her for a sister. But others had marked her as well, among them, the ones we fight._

 _Strength, sorrow, compassion, knowledge: all these were written in her face as she tried to judge me in her limited way, without your guidance._

 _I wanted to embrace her, and cry for her. I wanted to tell her you were watching over her. But she’s never turned around and faced you. She still looks for you in a faith that lost touch with you so very long ago._

 _Your eyes are all around me tonight, and I think you’ve forgiven me for my own moments of weakness. It’s cold, and my legs sting with the touch of the bramble. But I guess that’s part of the ritual between us; pain and blood in small amounts. I feel your presence in your land, under my naked feet. I feel your outrage in the wildness of the air upon my naked skin._

 _Invaders. They have touched your children near at hand, and in this place I am your guardian. If you had more daughters, these incursions would have been stopped long ago. If your sons would listen to you, they would never have started._

 _If your sons would listen to you ... I regret my stupidity over Farley, goddess. And it’s not like you didn’t have a hand in what happened. The sex was good at first._

 _Later? When I realized he was damaged and would never be whole, I could have cast him from my life and your land. I hesitated, and with that hesitation sealed the fate of my sweet bitch._

 _Father said my mother could call you any time she willed. I’ve spoken with you as long as I can remember, but never called for your presence. Tonight I need you, as you need me._

 _This ground is soaked with blood, with life. Dilly and Farley lie at the heart of the Bramble, close to your heart. Take them back to yourself. Farley, at least, is far more use to you dead than alive. The brambles will thrive on that heap of vanity and meanness._

 _Sorry. I need clarity right now, not anger._

 _They’re near tonight, and trespass will not be tolerated._

 _Lend me your eyes, goddess; lend me your wrath. Invaders may not thrive upon your land._


End file.
